It’s the highest first-week total in a decade, since Eminem’s The Eminem Show debuted with 1.3m in June 2002.

SWIFT MILLION!

Kendrick Lamar Debuts at #2, with Tony Bennett, Stone Sour, Gary Clark Jr. and Lady Antebellum Bowing in Top 10
Taylor Swift’s latest Big Machine effort is a Red alert for the music business.

In what represents the eighth largest first-week debut in modern chart history, Swift’s fourth studio album, the follow-up to 2010’s Speak Now, debuts at #1 with a gargantuan total of 1.21 million, beating that last record’s 1.05m.

It’s the highest first-week total in a decade, since Eminem’s The Eminem Show debuted with 1.3m in June 2002, finishing behind The Beatles1 compilation, which sold 1.26 in January 2001. Swift’s the first artist since Eminem to have two first-week million sellers in a row. In addition, Swift will set the record for largest, non-99-cent-sale-priced digital album, besting the 420k digital first week most recently set by Mumford & Sons' Babel.

And that was with Hurricane Sandy bearing down on the East Coast as the album completed its sales week.

Swift wasn’t the only news of the week. Aftermath/Intersope’s Kendrick Lamar scores an impressive 242k, #2 bow for his debut, good kid, m.A.A.d city, as the latest heir to the South Central L.A. rap throne, hand-picked by Dr. Dre himself.

The week’s other Top 10 debuts include Columbia legend Tony Bennett’s Latin-flavored Viva Duets (#5), Roadrunner rockers Stone Sour’s House of Gold & Bones Part 1 (#6), Warner Bros. critically acclaimed blues guitar-slinger Gary Clark Jr.’s Blak & Blu (#8) and Capitol Nashville’s Lady Antebellum Christmas album, On This Winter’s Night (#9).

Last week’s chart-topper, Broken Bow country rocker Jason Aldean’s Night Train, dips down to #3, with Glassnote’s Mumford & Sons (#4), RCA pop/R&B divas P!nk (#7) and Brandy (#10) the only other holdovers.

Other Top 50 newcomers include AstralwerksSwedish House Mafia (#15), Razor & Tie’s The Sword (#18), Hollywood’s Disney Channel star Bridgit Mendler (#27), Soul Temple’s RZA-directed, Eli Roth-produced The Man with the Iron Fists soundtrack (#36) and Warner Bros. Nashville’s Blake Shelton holiday collection, Cheers, It’s Christmas (#43).

A&M/Octone act Maroon 5’s Overexposed continues to over-perform as the week’s biggest double-digit gainer, moving #16-14, +14%.

Hitting this week are Warner Bros. rapper Meek Mill, Show Dog’s Toby Keith, Verve’s Rod Stewart, Reprise’s Neil Young, A&M/Octone’s Flyleaf and Lava/Republic’s Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

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